


Better Days

by HeartsInJeopardy



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Christmas, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Post-Game(s), References to past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartsInJeopardy/pseuds/HeartsInJeopardy
Summary: A lot can change in two years. As Lev and Abby adjust to life on Catalina, they reflect on the journey that brought them there.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 64





	1. Old Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Abby and Lev were my favorite part of the new game, so of course I wondered what comes next for them. This is just my longer version of “they lived happily ever after.”

Staying awake was the hardest part.

Most of Abby’s body hurt in one way or another: every inch of exposed skin was sunburnt, her legs still ached from the pillar, and the open knife wounds on her arms stung each time she gripped the boat’s tiller. But pain was the last thing on her mind.

What concerned her was the numbness settling on her body like the fog hanging over the dark waves. Words like “hemorrhage” and “shock” drifted through her mind, but Abby let them pass. She forced herself to focus entirely on the gray horizon spread out before their boat. 

She could feel herself nodding off; slapped her cheek – _hard_ – to shock herself awake but hardly registered it. The resonant thrum of the motor echoing over the empty ocean felt dangerously hypnotic.

Abby’s gaze sagged down from the wall of fog before them. Down further, past the rhythmic bobbing of the bow on the rolling waves until her chin was nearly touching her chest. Her eyes settled on Lev. Or the thin and fragile shell of him left from their time on the farm.

She watched his lips but couldn’t tell on the rocking boat if they were moving. His scarred, sunken cheeks seemed like they were carved into his body. Abby reached her free hand out, setting just two fingers on Lev’s neck with deliberate gentleness.

If there was a pulse under her calloused and chilled fingertips, she couldn’t feel it.

Stifling a sob, Abby let go of the tiller and hunched over Lev. She laid a hand on his chest and held her own breath, waiting for the calm between waves when she couldn’t feel the rolling ocean through Lev’s body.

The heartbeat was faint, like someone tapping a finger against her palm, but it brought a flood of tears to Abby’s eyes and a whispered prayer to her lips. She grabbed the tiller again and raised her head to scan the fog, keeping her free hand on Lev’s chest.

The soft, steady beating of Lev’s heart pulsed through Abby’s body. It drove her to stay alert, alive, when every instinct and aching wound urged her to sink into the comfort of sleep. Even after the first light from shore cut through the darkness, Abby’s trembling fingers kept their place over Lev’s heart.

“I’ve got you,” she muttered, keeping her eyes on the growing span of lights for fear that they would vanish if she glanced away.

Her own voice sounded like a distant rasp, and speaking stung her bruised throat. But something inside Abby told her Lev would hear the words.

“I’ve got you, Lev. I’m taking you home.”

***

The lights in Abby’s room were old fluorescents that droned when they switched on. The sound, like a low roar, startled her awake and she fumbled the book on her lap. The noise of the hardcover slapping against the floor spooked her again.

Lev was at her side and Abby almost grabbed him, ready to drag him out of the room at a sprint, before realizing it was not the Lev from her dream.

He was still short for his age, and slim, although two years of steady meals and exercise had filled out his wiry frame. The dark, curious eyes fixed on Abby were just as they had always been. The scars framing Lev’s lips, on the other hand, were gradually fading away. Already they were mostly hidden in his healthy tan from the sunny island.

Abby sighed and rubbed her eyes, feeling a relief she couldn’t put into words. She was not the withered shadow from her dream of the boat either. But waking up without her muscles or her braided hair – both of which were still short of what they had been two years ago - wouldn’t have fazed her as long as Lev was alright.

“Remind me to teach you about knocking one of these days,” Abby grumbled.

“The door was open,” Lev said flatly. “I could hear your teeth grinding down the hall.”

Abby scoffed. “No you couldn’t.”

“I can borrow Eddie’s tape recorder and prove it.”

“I dare you,” Abby taunted. She noticed the quiver and bow slung on Lev’s shoulder and remembered her promise from last night. “Target practice,” she muttered. “Just give me a minute. Put some of the instant coffee in my thermos and make yourself one if you like.”

Lev switched on her kettle and opened the cupboard above it in search of coffee. Behind his back, Abby pushed an open shoebox of tools and wood pieces under her bed before grabbing a jacket, boots and her own bow from her closet.

She sat back down on her bed with a groan, stretching out her stiff left leg. The stab wound had hardly bothered her on the trip to Santa Barbara. It was only after their stay at the farm, and then the weeks spent convalescing in Avalon, that her injuries from those last, brutal days in Seattle seemed to catch up with her.

Bending down to tie her boots, Abby glanced at Lev and caught him stroking the short, black fuzz on his chin. She smiled to herself, remembering Lev’s excited grin the first day he had pointed out the stubble.

It was one more entry on the long list of things she was thankful to Avalon’s doctors for, marked right beneath her ability to close her left hand with (almost) no pain.

Lev passed Abby her thermos and tucked his own into his quiver. “I’m ready.”

“Ready for me to show you up again?”

Lev smirked and said, “You must still be dreaming,” obviously proud of his joke. Abby sprang up and tried to tousle his short hair but Lev darted out of the room before she could reach him.

She flipped off the lights and pulled the door closed behind them, following Lev into the sunlit dorm’s hallway. As they squeezed between a group of workers chatting and laughing by the doors, Abby tried to picture the empty, mouldering building they had moved into just two years ago.

Her superiors had called it a “stay put” job. Something slow paced for her and Lev to do together after they were discharged from the medical center in Avalon. Back then, the Fireflies were keen to move some of their growing population north to Toyon Bay and the Marine Institute campus, tasking them with building a radio station and pier closer to the island’s inland farms.

Tucked away in a cove dotted with palm trees between scrubby hills, the Marine Institute’s red shingled buildings had been used as both a boarding school and a training ground for spies in their former lives. Now, they were topped with solar panels, painted with black Firefly logos and converted into workshops and offices to suit the group’s needs.

Officially, Abby was the outpost’s chief of security and Lev was her assistant. But for the first few months they had done little more than eat, sleep and hike up the island’s sage covered hills to regain their strength.

It was a sort of on-the-job rehab program approved by the group’s senior members, who had heard plenty of horror stories about the Rattler farm before Abby and Lev confirmed the worst of them. Even the construction crew, who spent long days in the sun expanding the cove’s pier, never said an ill word as Abby and Lev sleepwalked through their first few weeks on the job.

Two years on, Toyon was a thriving waystation for crops shuttled in by horse carts and then sailed down the coast to Avalon, or up to the remote outpost at Twin Harbors. The radio station had its own growing crew, keeping in touch with smaller outposts and broadcasting across the Southwest with their newly built radio tower.

Lev and Abby earned their fill these days, organizing the network of patrols and lookouts that kept the outpost defended. But on a sleepy island like Catalina – with no rival groups and hardly any infected – they found plenty of time for themselves.

They cut across the quad of dry grass at the center of campus and through the dining hall, where a group of workers were unpacking a plastic Christmas tree from a box. As Lev and Abby drew closer, a teenage girl with a mop of red, curly hair broke off from the group, giving them a friendly wave.

Only a handful of kids Lev’s age had rotated through Toyon with their parents so far. But Abby had taken a shine to the always-cheery Erin and was glad to see her getting along with Lev.

“Hey Lev,” she called, her drawl stretching out the E in his name. “Hey Abby. We’ve got a lot of decoratin’ to do, want to lend a hand?”

“Uh, sorry, we’re going target shooting,” Lev said with a tug on his quiver’s strap.

Abby waited for Lev to go on before nudging his shoulder. “You can ask her to come with,” she told him. “We’re not a private club.”

“R-right,” Lev stammered. “If you’re not doing anything… I mean, I know you said you were decorating but-”

“It’s alright,” Erin said with a casual flap of her hand. “I’ll catch you later, okay?”

“Catch you then, yep. See you then. Later.”

Lev strode past Erin and out of the dining hall with his head down, moving so fast Abby had to jog to keep pace with him. She waved over her shoulder at Erin and noticed an amused smile on the girl’s face.

“You’re sure you want to go shooting right now?” she asked Lev. He glanced back at her with a furrowed brow as they started up the dirt trail leading off campus.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Abby shrugged coyly. “Is there… any place you would rather be right now?”

She watched Lev work his jaw as he thought over his answer. His cheeks were flushed and Abby knew that it wasn’t from the gentle slope of the trail. At last his lips curled into a smirk and he shot Abby a smug look.

“I guess I’d rather be in bed, but we can’t all sleep the day away like you.”

“Oh,” Abby chuckled, “you are going to get it!”

She dashed toward Lev and he broke into a sprint, just slipping out of her reach. She chased him up the trail, savoring the sound of his baying laughter as he kept a few steps ahead of her all the way.

***

Abby prowled through the copse of trees, crouching low to the ground and listening keenly for the sound of footsteps. Dappled sunlight fell through curving branches of the manzanita trees around her, leaving shadowy trails on the unkempt scrub below.

A sudden rustling made Abby freeze, hold her breath and scan the branches above. Clay targets strung from lengths of twine swayed in the breeze, and when the wind was strong enough they bounced off the branches in an eerie chorus.

_Tok. Tok. Tok._

Abby pressed forward warily, shifting her weight to quiet her footfalls on the dry scrub. She caught a glimpse of movement – a shadow darting across the ground – before a weight crashed onto her back and knocked the wind out of her.

“Got you!” Lev cheered.

He let out a triumphant laugh, clinging off Abby’s neck as she staggered to keep her balance. Her left foot slid off a rock and hit the uneven ground at an awkward angle, causing a jolt of pain that made her clench her teeth. The grunt she let out killed Lev’s laughter instantly. He hopped down from Abby’s back and looked her over, his eyes wide with concern.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked sheepishly.

Abby took in a long breath and waited for the sting to subside before she answered. “I don’t break that easy,” she told him. “You ought to know that.”

“I’m probably getting too big for that game.”

“Or I’m getting too old,” Abby sighed.

She eased herself to the ground in a shady spot between the trees, a few of which still held arrows from their target practice earlier. Knowing Lev would worry over her, she put on a relaxed smile and stifled the usual groan she let out when sitting down. He sat on the grass beside her and leaned back on his arms, gazing up through tree branches at the clear sky overhead.

“We’ll pack up and head back in a few minutes,” Abby told him. “We should help the others with the decorating.”

Lev only nodded, but the muted response told Abby how eager he really was to get back.

“Are you excited for the party?” she asked, earning another nod.

“It’ll be fun,” he said coolly. “Last year everyone had their little groups, so it was just you and me.”

“Oh, so I’m no fun?” Abby teased.

Lev grinned but didn’t take the bait. “I mean there’s all the extra stuff this year: the turkey from Escondido and the eggnog Otis is making-”

“You’re not having any,” Abby said flatly.

“And Kyle burned a bunch of Christmas movies on his _drive_ -” Lev’s voice cracked and dropped abruptly, making him groan and roll his eyes while Abby laughed.

“I wondered when we’d hear that today.”

“I’m sick of it,” Lev scoffed.

“Hey, you should be glad,” Abby assured him. “It means you’re growing up, and that beats the alternative.”

“I just wish it would hurry up and change,” he muttered with a sour expression.

“Are you worried Erin is gonna think you’re ‘un-cold’?”

Lev sighed and threw his head back. Abby wasn’t sure if the mention of Erin or her favorite little reminder of Lev’s slang mix-ups had inspired the reaction.

“How’d you know?” he asked simply.

“I’m your-” Abby trailed off and knit her brows, wondering what she had meant to say. ‘I’m your friend’? ‘Big sister’? ‘Mom’? None of them felt exactly right. “I’m perceptive,” she corrected herself. “Which means I notice when you turn into a goober around her, _and_ when she smiles anyway.”

Lev shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll get rotated somewhere else soon.”

Abby frowned, surprised to hear Lev’s old pessimism rearing its head again. She hoped he had grown out of it by now.

“She’ll be here another couple of months at least,” she told him. “And you can keep in touch afterward anyway. Why don’t you invite her out here sometime?” She motioned around them at the copse they used for target practice. “Maybe without me here to embarrass you.”

Lev stared down at the ground, idly pulling out blades of grass with his shoulders slumped. Abby was on the verge of asking what was wrong when he quietly said, “I worry that she doesn’t know me well enough.”

Abby understood everything she needed to from the guarded look Lev gave her. The hurt he had carried all the way from the Seraphite island shone through it as clear as day.

“It’s like,” Lev mused, “everything is fine now. But the closer we get the more it feels like everything’s going to go wrong.”

Abby frowned and shook her head. “Buddy, Erin likes _you_ for who _you_ are. I’m sure the more she gets to know you, the more she’ll like you.”

“But what if-”

“Listen,” Abby cut in, draping an arm over Lev’s shoulders. “Erin already knows that you’ll probably never be tall enough to dunk a basketball.”

A smile flashed on Lev’s face, followed quickly by an indignant frown. “Hey!”

“And she knows,” Abby continued, “that you dance like a robot. But she also knows that when it’s your turn to pick a movie, you always choose one that _she_ likes.” She rubbed Lev’s shoulder and smiled fondly at him. “You know what made me fall in love with Owen?” she asked.

“What?” Lev said with genuine interest.

“His smile. And the goofy jokes he told. And once he had me hooked with those, there was nothing he could have shared with me that would have changed my mind.”

“It still feels scary,” Lev admitted. “It’s been a long time since I had to tell anyone.”

“You don’t have to do it alone. If you’d rather, we could sit down with Erin together and I could help explain.”

One corner of Lev’s lips curled up and he nodded faintly. “And… you think she likes me back?” Abby shrugged and smiled mischievously.

“Well, she puts up with you. I guess you just have to ask her. Or… keep hanging around her and acting like a doofus until she suddenly confesses her love to you.”

Lev nodded again. “Okay.” Abby opened her mouth to point out her sarcasm but fell silent as Lev put his head on her shoulder. “Thanks, Abby,” he said quietly.

Smiling to herself, she set a hand on Lev’s dark hair and stroked his head. Any other time he would have pulled away and scoffed, but now he sat still with his eyes closed. A gentle breeze swept between the trees, and as Abby shut her own eyes she could smell the sea on the wind.

She had to stand up now, Abby knew, or she would never want to leave this moment.

“Come on kid,” she said, mussing up Lev’s hair as she pushed off the ground. “Everyone’s back home decking the halls and we’re just sitting around.”

She gave Lev her hand and pulled him off the ground. They split up among the trees to gather the stray arrows – mainly hers – left from their practice.

“You know,” Abby called out to Lev. “It’s my night to pick the movie. Want that _Deep Blue_ one? With the sharks?”

Lev chuckled and answered without looking back. “That one’s stupid.”

Abby spun around on her heel and squinted through the trees at him. “I thought you loved sharks?”

“When I was a kid,” he shot back.

Abby laughed and shook her head without bothering to reply. 

“I know what you’re going to say,” Lev sighed.

“Who,” Abby laughed, “me?”


	2. Demons

“Abby…” Lev whispered from the doorway of her room. “Abby?”

She rolled over on her bed with a weary groan, lifting her head to peer across the dark room at her alarm clock. The glowing numbers were red blurs in her bleary vision, but that told Abby it was too early to be awake.

“Nightmare?” she yawned. Lev’s shadowy silhouette nodded to her.

Without another word, Abby pressed her back against the wall and beckoned Lev in. She heard the door close and Lev’s quiet footfalls padding across the room before he curled up beside her.

It was a routine they had built in their early weeks at the outpost, when Lev was adjusting to sleeping in his own room for the first time.

At the medical center in Avalon, he had spent three long days drifting in and out of consciousness before the doctors stabilized him. By the second day, the nurses realized nothing would stop Abby from dragging herself down the hall – IV lines and all – to curl up in the chair at his bedside. Moving Lev’s bed into her room was their compromise.

Abby forced herself to stay awake through the long nights, watching Lev from across the room and agonizing over his every breath. When she finally nodded off, then woke up to find Lev dozing with his skinny arms wrapped around her, Abby had hidden her face under a pillow to stifle her relieved sobs.

Now, Lev knew that he had an open invitation whenever his memories of Seattle or Santa Barbara kept him awake. No questions, no talk unless he wanted to, just a place to sleep where he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.

Although Abby couldn’t remember the last time he had needed her comfort – it was months ago at least. Still, when she stretched out an arm Lev rolled onto his side, resting his head in the crook of her neck just as he always did.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he whispered, sounding just as tired as she was.

Abby snorted and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

She would never complain about it to Lev, but Abby knew there was no chance of her getting a decent rest that night. Her mind was already busy making a to-do list for the next day, reminding her of a dozen little unfinished projects and fretting over Lev all the while.

Still, she couldn’t blame him. Even before coming to Catalina Abby had spent countless nights lying awake in bed, lost in her painful memories or afraid to fall asleep and see the loved ones she had lost. Those nights were fewer these days, maybe thanks to her boring job, but Abby still knew what it felt like to wake up in a cold sweat.

The difference was that she couldn’t always count on someone to be there for her. She wanted to be that person for Lev, someone he could rely on, anytime and always. And if that meant yawning through her breakfast to help him get some rest, so be it.

Thankfully it took just a few minutes before Lev was back asleep, his face buried in her shoulder and his hands folded across his chest - just like how Abby’s father always fell asleep at his desk.

Abby slipped her arm out from under Lev and rolled him onto his back, giving him more room to spread out while she shrank against the wall. It was hardly comfy, but the quiet rhythm of Lev’s breath was soothing, and to her pleasant surprise Abby felt her eyes getting heavy.

Of course, just then a knock at the door made her bolt awake.

“What?” she called out.

“It’s me Abby,” one of her sentries, Kyle, said through the closed door. “Jonesy heard some noises out on the road. It’s probably nothing, but…”

“It’s alright,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m coming.”

When Kyle’s footsteps moved down the hall Abby nudged Lev’s shoulder.

“Oh no, did I wake you?” she asked with mock sympathy.

Lev sighed. “Go get my stuff?”

“I’ll meet you outside.”

***

It was a moonless night, but Lev and Abby could walk the Institute’s grounds blindfolded after years of evening patrols. Aside from their warm clothes, sturdy boots and clip-on flashlights, the only gear they brought along was Lev’s bow and the pistol Abby kept in her room.

On Catalina, Abby had quickly learned, there were more false alarms than causes for alarm. She often thought her job was a lot like being a parent to a skittish child: checking the closet and under the bed for monsters on request.

It felt silly, but parents do a lot of silly things to help their kids sleep through the night.

They followed a waving flashlight’s beam to the end of the Institute’s property, where a tree-lined dirt road stretched into the distance. Its winding, backtracking branches would eventually bring you over the ridges surrounding Toyon Bay, back to Avalon or nearly anywhere else on the island.

To Abby’s surprise, she and Lev found Kyle alone at the start of the road. The chagrinned smile on the lanky blonde’s face told her Kyle knew he was in for a scolding.

“Where’s Jonesy?” she asked.

“He just left to keep patrolling,” Kyle explained sheepishly. “I know he was supposed to stay put and report to you, but he seemed pretty spooked.”

“Well, what did he hear?”

“ _He said_ it sounded like infected,” Kyle answered.

“ _An_ infected or a group?”

“Just one. He thought it sounded like a clicker?”

Abby glanced at Lev and caught the hint of a smirk on his otherwise composed face. He wandered past Kyle, pretending to look down the road but really, Abby guessed, politely hiding his amusement. She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling too.

“He _thought_ it sounded like one?”

“Yeah.”

“Well was it clicking or not?”

Kyle grimaced and Abby was glad to see he knew how this all sounded. “Y’know, Jonesy was the one who heard it, let me see if I can get him back to fill you in.”

Kyle stuck two fingers in his mouth. Before Abby could stop him, he let out an ear-splitting wolf whistle that echoed between the hills. Caught with his back to Kyle, Abby saw Lev’s shoulders tense at the whistle then heave up and down as he took shallow breaths.

“You know what,” Abby said quickly, “it’s probably just foxes like always. We’ll check it out. Find Jonesy and relieve him, okay?”

Kyle was already heading back down the road before Abby finished, flashing a thumbs up. Eager to get closer to the Institute, Abby guessed, and to give Jonesy an earful for making him look stupid in front of her.

She hurried to Lev’s side and put an arm around him. Abby hoped the gesture would disguise Lev’s trembling in case Kyle looked back, but she also ushered him down the road at a calm pace to put some distance between them.

“Breathe,” she directed Lev. “Count it in, count it out like I showed you.”

Abby rubbed Lev’s back steadily as he took a deep breath in and exhaled gradually. By his second breath his shoulders had stopped shaking and he wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

After a long moment he mumbled, “Thanks,” without looking up at Abby.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you like this bud,” she said as they wandered down the road. “Everything alright?”

“He just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

“Sure, but you were upset earlier too.”

Lev shuffled forward with his head down, saying nothing. Abby kept her hand on his shoulder and followed along until he found his voice again.

“I didn’t really have a nightmare,” he admitted. “It was just… a lot of bad memories. I don’t know why but they get worse sometimes.”

“They just do,” Abby told him. “But you’re safe now, you know that.”

Lev nodded and glanced up at her, smiling with glistening eyes that made Abby want to pull him into a hug.

“I know,” he said. “But it wasn’t about me. I was thinking about Yara, and my mom too.” He glanced away, scanning the shadowy sage bushes at the roadside. “Does that ever happen to you? Something reminds you of them and you can’t get them out of your head?”

“Every day.”

Lev turned back to her and the surprise on his face caught Abby off guard. “With Owen and Mel?” he asked.

“Sometimes, or my dad.” Lev nodded. Abby had told Lev stories about him on their long trip to Santa Barbara. “I think about Yara too sometimes,” she added, leaving out Manny and countless others Wolves she had known and lost.

She tousled Lev’s hair and he pulled away with his usual annoyance, a sign to Abby that he was feeling better.

“Sometimes,” she confided in a hushed tone, “I even get choked up thinking about you.”

Lev chuckled and narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m still here!”

“I know. But I came really, really close to losing you.”

Lev looked down at his feet, deep in thought, and they walked on in silence. Abby flicked on her flashlight and swept its beam over both sides of the road.

Infected didn’t concern her. There were so few left on the island that Abby doubted Jonesy or Kyle had even seen one in years. But Catalina did have rattlesnakes that liked to slither around at night, even in the island’s colder months. The local variety was rare but particularly sneaky, since their tails didn’t actually rattle.

“How come you never told me about this?” Lev asked her suddenly.

Abby pursed her lips and mulled the question over. “I… don’t know. I guess because it was my job to be strong for you.” Lev scoffed.

“That’s dumb. Besides, it makes me feel better knowing I’m not alone.”

Abby laughed and shrugged her broad shoulders. “Well I’m glad my grief is good for something.”

“You know what I mean,” Lev whined. “What I’m saying is-”

A high pitched call – something between a shriek and a squeal – interrupted Lev. It made the hairs on Abby’s neck stand up because she knew instantly that it hadn’t come from a fox. She switched off her flashlight and waited in silence for another call.

Lev began to whisper, “You don’t think it’s actually-”

“No,” Abby said curtly. “Some type of animal, but I don’t know what. Listen.”

Lev kept quiet. It was a long wait before they heard another squeal, close by but faint. Abby switched on her flashlight and Lev followed suit, trailing her off the road and into a clearing at the foot of a high ridge.

“Let me go first,” she told him, “I think I see something.”

Lev switched off his light and crouched down, hiding himself behind tall stalks of grass. He watched Abby creep forward, stepping quietly from the heel to the toe of her boots but with her flashlight still shining. She stopped and pointed it at the ground, illuminating something dark and hairy curled up in a ball.

To Lev’s surprise, Abby straightened and casually stepped closer, cocking her head to look down at the creature. She nudged it with her toe and a high pitched yelp in reply made Lev flinch.

Abby kept calm.

She reached down without fear beside the huddle of fur, then turned around immediately and made her way back to Lev. He sprang up from his hiding place and turned on his light, fixing Abby with a puzzled stare.

“What is it?” he asked warily. “What is it?”

“It’s a puppy.”

Abby clicked off her light to give Lev a clearer view of the scrawny puppy she held to her chest. It was brown with floppy, pointed ears and stubby tail. The mutt fixed its shining eyes on Lev and growled faintly.

“Its mother died,” Abby told him with jerk of her head back toward the clearing. “Maybe got sick, maybe a snake bit her. She didn’t look too bad.”

“Are we _keeping_ her?” Lev asked. His enthusiasm made his voice warble but for once Lev didn’t seem to mind. He reached out and lightly stroked the dog’s head with his fingers.

“We’ll take it back at least,” Abby told him. “Seagram has vet training so he can look after it. The mother was pretty small but maybe the crews in Avalon can use it-“

Lev's smile changed to a frown. “Can’t _we_ keep it?” he asked, sounding crestfallen.

He pulled gently on the puppy and Abby let him take it. Lev held the dog close to his chest, brushing a hand softly over its ears. When he raised his head to give Abby a pleading look, the dog followed his gaze. Having both sets of dark, sad eyes turned on her at once was overwhelming.

“We will take it back tonight and feed it,” Abby said in the commanding voice she reserved for giving orders. “Tomorrow, we’ll ask how other people feel about keeping a dog in the dorms.”

“In my room?” Lev asked with an excited grin. Abby sighed as his contagious smile made her lips curl up.

“If you get the all okay,” she told him. “But that would mean _you_ are responsible for it. You have to feed it and take it on walks and-”

“You keep saying _it_ ,” Lev laughed. He held up the dog and squinted at it. “She’s a girl, right?”

“Looks like it,” Abby agreed.

“Can I call her Alice?”

The question stung Abby, bringing back another of their shared, painful memories. It was a sad reminder of yet another loss in Lev’s short life, but his earnestness was impossible to refuse.

“You’re asking me permission for your dog’s name?” she teased. “That sounds like your department.”

“Alice,” Lev confirmed, smiling down at the puppy.

Abby patted his shoulder and they set off back down the road to the Institute. Lev zipped down his jacket and tucked Alice inside, cradling her against his chest with his arm. The dog’s head poked out through the zipper’s opening and Abby watched it slowly doze off in the steady rhythm of his footsteps.

“You’re lucky she’s so small,” Abby cooed. “Because you’re going to be the one cleaning up every single poo she makes.”

Lev stared down at Alice and rubbed her tiny muzzle with the thumb of his free hand. He glanced at Abby twice before managing to ask the question that was obviously eating at him.

“Do you still get angry too?”

“Like when someone wakes me in the middle of the night to hunt for imaginary clickers?” she asked with a smile.

Lev smiled back but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. He regarded Abby for a long moment before continuing in a hushed voice. “Like you were in Seattle… At the theater.”

Abby took a deep breath and gazed down the road at the Institute’s faint security lights. She gave Lev a sidelong glance. “Did Alice make you think of that?”

He nodded and cast his eyes down at the dog.

“It’s been a long time since I felt that way,” she told him honestly. “And I’m glad.”

“But you said Ellie’s still alive, right?”

Abby could feel her heartbeat speed up. She ground her teeth and thought back to the medical center in Avalon, where she had told Lev about her encounter with Ellie on the beach. It was the last time either of them had mentioned her before now.

“Who knows?” Abby asked. The question came out more irritated than she had meant to sound and she took a deep breath before continuing. “She was when we left the beach,” she told Lev.

“Why do you think she just gave up like that?”

“She realized the same thing I did: you can’t ease your pain by hurting someone else.”

Lev stopped in the middle of the road, staring into space. Abby waited beside him until he turned his eyes back on her. “That way, everyone just ends up hurt even worse, right?”

“Right.” Abby nodded. “Remember that, Lev. We both knew it when we were your age, and then we forgot it. It took way too much time and pain for each of us to remember it again.”

Lev nodded slowly, studying Abby’s face. She wondered what he thought of her in that moment, reflecting on everything she had done since they met each other. Abby could still vividly recall the fear in those dark eyes of his when he watched her hold a knife to the pregnant woman’s throat.

It wasn’t one of her fondest memories. Some nights the voices that kept her awake for hours asked what _could_ have happened that day, what she might have done without Lev there to stop her.

A muffled squeal from the puppy brought Lev and Abby back to the present. Lev hugged her tighter to his chest and they set off again without a word.

Before long, Lev brushed his shoulder against Abby’s arm and she draped it around him. They walked each other, arm in arm, back toward the distant lights.


	3. Small Mercies

About an hour into the outpost’s Christmas party, Abby began to wonder if she could cancel it for security reasons.

Someone had dug up an old CD player and box of albums, including one Christmas CD with cartoon chipmunks on the cover. Everyone else seemed to get a kick out of hearing the same, squeaky-voiced songs over and over, but when “Here Comes Santa Claus” came on for a third time Abby stifled a groan.

Against her better judgement, she poured herself a cup of Otis’ hooch-spiked eggnog from the refreshment table. It had a tangy, metallic taste that gave Abby stray thoughts about going blind. But it took the edge off the droning version of “Silver Bells” filling the dining hall.

She had to give the others credit, they had done a fine job of decorating the hall in their spare time. The Christmas tree - a towering plastic one with built-in lights - was glowing brightly and heaped with presents wrapped in tissue paper, old posters and scraps of fabric. The walls were hung with toyon branches, which looked just like holly with the bright red berries dangling off them. Someone had even glued a box full of blue packing peanuts into a wobbly snowman for the refreshment table.

Owen would have been impressed with all the work they had put in. Although, Abby thought, it didn’t measure up to the aquarium’s model whale draped with string lights.

With her paper cup in hand, Abby leaned against the room’s far wall and scanned the crowd mingling around the Christmas tree. Her sentries were laughing together in a noisy group, the few kids gathered around a TV playing one of Kyle’s Christmas movies, and even a group of transfers from Twin Harbors were mixing with their new neighbors.

It always surprised Abby how quickly people got along at the Institute, even in a tightknit community like the Fireflies.

It was a skill she used to have, bouncing easily between groups in the Wolves and finding new friends wherever she went. But since arriving in Catalina it had been hard to get to know anyone.

You could chalk it up to the way the other workers were always shuffling from one outpost to the next, staying in one place for just a few months at a time. Still, Abby wondered if her time in Seattle, or on the farm, had cut her off from other people somehow.

The Chipmunks struck up the chorus to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and Abby realized she was getting gloomy. She nursed her cup of eggnog and searched the crowd for Lev.

She found him with Erin and her parents, who looked like they were laughing over a joke from Lev. Probably one of Owen’s old ones, Abby thought. She had taught Lev every one she could still remember.

Erin was cradling Alice in her arms and smiling as Lev rubbed the puppy’s ears. The two of them had been spending more time together since Lev took the dog home, taking her for walks and letting the puppy chase them around the quad.

It was perfect timing, Abby thought with a smile. Lev didn’t need to find the courage to ask Erin out if she was always hanging around him and the dog. She had a hunch it was only a matter of time before Lev started blowing off their target practice to see Erin.

Abby slumped against the wall and took another sip of the eggnog, already accustomed to the odd taste. She was considering ducking out of the party once the cup was empty when a loud, scraping noise caught her attention.

A pair of men she recognized from the radio crew were moving one of the hall’s heavy tables with attached benches across the room. Someone had probably asked them to make space for the next batches of cookies and treats, but one of the men was letting his end of the table drag on the floor.

Abby hurried to his side, still holding her eggnog, and slipped her free hand under the table. “I’ve got it,” she said firmly, easily lifting his end off the floor tiles.

The man backing up with the table’s other end grunted an acknowledgement at Abby as they shuffled across the room. His friend followed along at Abby’s side until she shot him a, _Really, I’ve got it_ , look.

They set the table down in its new place and the man helping Abby shook out his hands. “Thanks,” he said, “you made that look easy.”

Abby tried to remember the bearded man’s name as she looked him up and down. He was tall and slender, with a shaved head and deep-set eyes the same shade of dark brown as his complexion.

The name still eluded her, so Abby only smiled and said, “No problem.”

“It makes me wonder why I always get picked for jobs like this when you’re around,” he joked.

Abby smirked and folded her brawny arms across her chest. “I have a talent for going unnoticed,” she told him.

He flashed a smile, pearly white like a photo from an old magazine, and Abby felt herself smiling along with him. “Somehow,” he told her, “I find that hard to believe.”

He stretched out his hand and Abby shook it.

“I’m Charles,” he said. “Work in the radio room. We technically met when my crew rotated in, but I bet you see a lot of new faces around here.”

Abby smiled sheepishly and nodded. “I knew it started with a C,” she lied. “I’m Abby. It’s nice to _actually_ meet you.”

“And the boy is Lev, right?” Charles asked while pointing in his direction. “I see you two together all the time so I figure you’re looking after him.”

“Well… in a manner of speaking,” Abby sighed.

Charles chuckled. “I know how it is. I picked up someone in Columbus who’s like a little sister to me now. She’s back in Avalon.” He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet on the tiles. “That’s about all the family I’ve got left to mention.”

Abby nodded, but when she thought of telling Charles about her family the words caught in her throat. “So Columbus, huh?” she asked. “What was it like up there?” Charles laughed and shook his head.

“Bad. Probably just as bad as anywhere else, except here.” He knocked on the wooden table and Abby smiled to herself.

“If you believe in bad luck you should keep your distance,” she warned him.

Charles smiled back playfully. “And why’s that?”

“It's the only kind I’ve got.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“Oh.” Abby raised her eyebrows and brought her cup to her lips, disguising her grin. “And what have you heard, exactly?”

Charles shrugged and cocked his head. “You know, the usual rumors and speculation. That you made it out of Seattle – with the kid – before it all fell apart.”

Abby nodded. “Uh huh.”

“That you broke out of the Rattler farm and made it over here in a boat you stole from them.”

Abby smiled coyly and nodded. She didn’t need to ruin the story by mentioning the little detour between her escape and the boat.

“All in all that you’re the island’s most badass clicker killer,” Charles concluded.

“That’s only about half the story,” Abby said dryly. The deep, hearty laugh Charles let out in response made her grin again. She could feel her cheeks flush and wondered if it was just the eggnog.

“Well,” Charles said as he grabbed a gingerbread cookie off the table, “if you ever want to fill me in on the rest, those late nights in the radio room get pretty boring.”

Abby narrowed her eyes at Charles and drummed her fingers on her cup. “And if I do, what’s in it for me?”

Charles froze with the cookie between his teeth, taking in Abby’s smug smile and the way her brown eyes lingered on his. He took a bite and chewed with a thoughtful expression before answering.

“You didn’t hear this from me,” he told her in a whisper, “but a few weeks ago some bozo in Avalon sent up an old hi-fi and a box of records.”

Abby tilted her head curiously.

“He got the idea in his head that eventually the radio station is gonna start playing music. Promised he’d send us any records the scavengers bring back.” Charles shrugged. “There’s a lot of junk but some good finds too: Teddy Pendergrass, the Yardbirds, Carly Simon, Stevie Wonder…”

Charles trailed off as Abby stared blankly through the list of names. She shrugged and grimaced. “Music was never really my thing.”

“Uh-uh,” Charles said with a shake of his head. “I changed my mind.” Abby scoffed the laughed at his dour expression.

“What? I’m not invited anymore?”

“Just the opposite.” Charles flashed another beaming smile that seemed to light up the room and poked one of Abby’s firm biceps. “Now you’re _required_ to come and listen. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

Charles strode off and took another bite of his cookie. “Attendance required,” he called over his shoulder.

“I’ll think about it!” Abby shot back.

She leaned against the wall and gulped down the rest of her eggnog, grinning to herself while she watched Charles rejoin his friends from the radio room. It was funny, she thought, how long you could go without noticing someone before it was suddenly hard to take your eyes off them.

“What were you talking about?”

Abby nearly jumped as Lev appeared at her side, glancing curiously between her and Charles.

“That’s Charles from the radio room,” she answered quickly.

“I know. You guys talked a lot and you smiled the whole time. You know, I don’t think he’s seeing anyone-”

“ _Okay_ mister nosey,” Abby interrupted him. “Did you come over here just to gossip?”

“No, I brought you this.”

Lev held out a small rectangle of red and green construction paper with an oblong bulge at one end. Abby had to turn it over in her hands before she realized what it was: a handmade stocking.

Staples bulged around the paper edges while the folded opening was sealed with a piece of tape. Lev had even put her name along the top in marker (Abby recognized his handwriting, with an irregular tilt she had never managed to teach him out of).

“You made this for me?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s kind of crappy,” Lev mumbled. “The edges aren’t lined up right.”

“No, it’s adorable,” Abby assured him. She shared a smile with Lev, then rattled the stocking and heard tinkling pieces of metal sliding inside.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she reminded Lev. “We open presents on Christmas Day.” His face fell instantly.

“Erin’s family open presents on Christmas Eve,” he whined. “Are you going to make me wait until tomorrow?”

Abby rolled her eyes and pointed him toward the Christmas tree. Lev dashed off through the crowd and knelt down to search the stack of presents beneath it.

While she waited for him, Abby turned over the stocking in her hand, tracing her fingertips over the rough construction paper.

Since meeting Lev, it felt like they had lived through one loss after another. They had lost their friends, their families, their homes, and parts of them that were harder to fit into tidy categories.

But just holding the stocking in her hand – those two sheets of scrap paper with her name scrawled on them – made Abby feel like it was all worthwhile. She had gained more here, with Lev, than she ever would have in Seattle.

Abby felt tiers brimming in her eyes and wiped them with a subtle gesture before Lev came sprinting back, holding a red bundle in his hands. Abby had tucked his present in a shoebox and wrapped it in an old sweater before drawing on stars and snowflakes with a marker.

She waited for Lev to tear open the box, but he just bounced from foot to foot while watching her. “You go first,” he said at last.

She unfolded the stocking’s opening and saw light glint off the small objects inside. She turned the stocking over and three coins slid into her palm. All three were quarters polished to mint condition, stamped with a condor, a leaping salmon and a pair of steam engines.

“Lev,” Abby said in awe as she turned over the coins. “How did you find these?”

“I wrote to Avalon,” he said proudly. “I told them about your collection and how you lost it in Haven. One of the scavvers wrote back and said he had his own collection. He let me pick out three for you.”

“Utah, Washington and California,” Abby noted. “You’ve got my whole life mapped out here.”

“Well, for now,” Lev shrugged. “Maybe we’ll go out and find some more someday.”

Maybe you will, Abby thought.

She wrapped and arm around Lev and squeezed him tightly until he pushed back with a laughing gasp. "You're crushing my present!"

“I love them bud,” she told him. “They’re amazing.”

“Can I open mine now?”

Abby nodded and Lev tore the old sweater off his box. He opened the lid, revealing the figurine of a snarling shark carved from driftwood.

“Awesome,” Lev said in a hushed tone. He dropped the box to turn over the figurine, running his finger across its rows of pointed teeth. “Did you make this yourself?”

Abby showed her calloused hand in reply. “Took a lot of trial and error. I still wasn’t sure if you would like it, now that you’re too _mature_ and _cold_ for shark movies.” 

“T-those are just the movies,” Lev spluttered. He cradled the shark against his chest and wrapped his free arm around Abby. “I think it’s great Abby, really.”

“Thanks kid,” she said, smoothing down a cowlick in his dark hair. “Just don’t ask for another one anytime soon or I could lose a hand.” He laughed along with her.

Lev stepped back, still holding Abby’s sleeve, and looked her in the eye with a sweet smile. “May the prophet keep guiding you, Abby,” he said, “the way she always has.” He must have recognized the shock in her eyes because his smile quickly faded. “You… don’t mind if I still say that, do you?”

“No, no it’s fine,” Abby assured him. “I’m glad, honestly. It’s just been so long since I heard you praying, I wasn’t sure you still believed.”

Lev nodded and looked down at the floor between them with a thoughtful expression. His hand slid down Abby’s arm to clasp her hand.

“Sometimes I get funny looks around here,” Lev told her. “So I keep it to myself. But since I heard the prophet’s voice that night I’ve known she was guiding both of us.”

Abby cocked her head and Lev scanned her face for any hint of recognition.

“I thought I told you,” he mumbled. “But it was in the hospital on Avalon. Maybe I just dreamed it…”

“You dreamed that you heard the prophet’s voice?”

“No,” Lev insisted. “I know I heard it. But maybe I told you in a dream.”

Abby motioned for Lev to go on.

“It was on the boat that night, when we left the mainland. I saw you set me down inside but then I passed out. Really, I was awake but couldn’t open my eyes. Couldn’t move. It felt like I was already dead. But then I heard a woman’s voice from faraway, and this peaceful feeling filled my body. She told me, ‘I’ve got you, Lev. I’m taking you home.’”

Lev smiled up at Abby, seemingly unfazed by the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“When I woke up in the hospital,” he told her, “the first thing I saw was you. I knew the prophet had told the truth, and I climbed into your bed to tell you.” He shrugged and chuckled softly. “I guess I fell asleep before I gave you the message. But you believe me, right?”

Abby pulled Lev into a tight hug again, sobbing openly without a care for the other guests, or anything else but him. She softly kissed his head of dark hair then leaned back, wiping her eyes as she forced a smile.

“I believe you, Lev,” she told him proudly. “I believe.”

***

_Take our sorrows, take our tears_

_Heaven's not so far from here_

_Though we struggle, hear us pray_

_There will be a better day_

_Show us mercy, give us rest_

_Hold the weary to Your breast_

_And for the child who lost her way_

_There will be a better day_

**Author's Note:**

> I thrive on feedback – good or bad – so if you made it this far I would love to hear your thoughts!


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